I was noticing a harsh white halo edge to my images, and after turning modules off and on, I discovered the Colour Calibration module is the culprit. Which surprised me.
I dearly want to keep using the CC module, so, what can I do?
Attachments show a magnified view where the edge disappears after turning off CC. Final attachment shows no sign of the edge using Sony Edit.
Att1: CC turned on with my custom Macbeth card calibration, shows halo edge
PS although the file used in DT is a DNG conversion from ARW, and the Sony Edit file is ARW, this is not related: I went back and opened the ARW in DT and the halo edge is exactly the same.
Iām not sure if the halo is really gone after deactivating CC. It just seems hardly visible since the surrounding sky is more white than blue. I think sharpen, d&s, tone-eq and local contrast are more the typical suspects.
But if you want usefull answers, share the raw and your xmp.
Sorry, but as far as I can see, the edge is still there, even after turning off colour calibration. Itās just much harder to see against the pale blue of the sky, compared to the version with CC.
I suspect the āsharpenā module to be the culprit, looking at the history stack.
I vote tone eq or contrast eqā¦ try bumping up the edge slider a little. Not on my PC will edit later with the name . Almost positive this will fix itā¦ or use a different norm for the mask. I like RGB sum or geometric mean.
Doesnāt this just change the way the brightness of the image is calculated and has no impact on any effect of the tone-eq? Given of course you set the mask compensation correctly. I think diffusion, smoothing and feathering may be more relevant in this case. They are probably set near to zero.
I am no expert. I usually use the defaults but Boris often uses the geometric mean and rgb sum seems to give a more contrasted resultsā¦ I am with you when I see a halo in the tone eq usually a small bump in the feathering works nicely and if not enough then setting diffusion to around 3 or so also helpsā¦those are the main two that I use in addtion to the compensation when using the toolā¦
Turning off sharpen, d&s, tone eq and local contrast doesnāt help.
It is completely absent from the Sony Edit image. Another Sony Edit sample attached with more saturation, to show it is not āhidingā in the light sky of my first Sony Edit sample.
Yes I see what you are saying: my custom colour Macbeth calibration remaps the sky to much more blue, but doesnāt remap the edge so much, so it is a colour change that forms the edge.
However, I am also noticing Exposure is contributing: if I leave Color Calibration on, but drop exposure, the edge disappears. And yet no channels are clipping along the edge.
I can make the edge disappear within Exposure by changing the blend mode from Normal to Harmonic. Does that help to explain the true cause?
Explaining it is all well and good, but what I donāt like is that I simply do a correct colour calibration, adjust exposure reasonably without causing clipping, apply default Local Contrast and Sharpening (it is definitely NOT sharpening halo)ā¦ and I get this unattractive artefact. IMHO that shouldnāt happen.
Maybe filmic rgb is involved? Does it go away if you turn the module off entirely, or switch the preserve chrominance option to a different setting or disable it?
I think so ā¦if you look at your color calibration which you are also using as a channel mixer a small amount more or setting blue channel in red output to zero removes the haloā¦ its just a confluence of settings along that edgeā¦
Iām sure tweaking one or two of the other sliders might also modify thisā¦but then even with the change I suggest you might not have the sky colour you wantā¦
@paolod@apostel338@priort ā¦you seem to be onto something, āitās just a confluence of settingsā, particularly Preserve Chrominance in filmic rgb.
It does bug me a bit, because those are the default settings. And I donāt really want to lose the colour correction I have made with a Macbeth chart. (Having said that, I had better check what filmic rgb was set to when I made my colour correction presets ā it was probably off!)
Also the highlights brilliance setting creates the haloed edge which can be reduced by reducing only that so there are a few small spots here and there that aggravate that edgeā¦
Since filmic rgb is downstream of color calibration in the pipeline, I donāt think it would have any effect at all on the correction presets that were made in color calibration.
I noticed that you left filmic on the defaultsā¦that can be an issue for highlights and things like thisā¦ you should at least try the auto settings they are pretty good for the most part something as simple as a bit more white relative can often impact things a lotā¦
I did this edit and then added the channel mixer settings used by TN ā¦no issues with halo so I think it really is not even just this setting and the initial case several small contributionsā¦including a couple you pointed outā¦
Adjusting filmic and following a pretty standard editā¦then adding the channel mixer with the OP settingsā¦
PS there were typical CA and I found switching the module to use red as the tracker was the bestā¦I agree it did not work at all on the halo but I donāt think it would
For me there wasnāt one thing but several that made that little contrasted edge worseā¦ and with a different edit the same channel mixer settings in CC module have no problem so its not that but a few thingsā¦
